In the autumn of 1974, Putin, who was a senior at Leningrad University, suddenly received a notice from the school that a middle-aged man wanted to talk to him and was waiting for him in the reception room of Law School.
St. Petersburg University (formerly Leningrad University)
Putin was taciturn at the university. The person who informed him did not say much, so he did not ask too many questions.
At this time, Putin was already 23 years old, with a strong body, relatively shy, but extremely sensitive to things. He thought that he would graduate from college next year. Could it be that the KGB was coming to find him?
Why Putin has this idea? This has to start from Putin’s elementary school days.
When he was in elementary school, Putin was already an excellent judo athlete. In addition, he also participated in an introductory German learning group and studied very hard, which surprised even the German teachers.
The fundamental reason why Putin works hard to learn German is that he wants to become an agent.
At that time, the Soviet Union was not only lacking in material life, but also in cultural life. An important part of it was watching movies, which were basically popular and professional war movies. The glorious image of Soviet agents in the movie was deeply impressed on Putin. in the mind.
In many movies, one agent is more important than an entire army.
Putin was affected by this, and he came up with the idea of becoming a Soviet agent, because being an agent would be too handsome. In fact, many people feel this way. The role of culture is invisible, but the change in a person's thinking is very profound.
Putin immediately turned his thoughts into actions. He went to the Leningrad Security Committee alone for consultation and wanted to join the KGB immediately. However, the KGB rejected him and gave him a suggestion: to go to university, preferably with a law degree. , which is the best way to join the KGB.
Putin’s father was very disappointed with Putin’s idea.
Putin’s father once participated in the Patriotic War, and one of his legs was disabled due to war injuries. Putin’s grandfather was once the chef of Lenin and Stalin. They all knew the cruelty of officialdom struggle and did not want Putin to get involved. In political struggles, everyone hopes that Putin can become an engineer and rely on technology to make a living, which is both safe and secure.
But Putin was unmoved. He started learning German when he was in elementary school, and when he graduated from high school, he decided to study law at Leningrad University.
Putin thought that the KGB had been paying attention to him, but he soon became disappointed. Putin explained:
“Throughout college, I thought that the guy at the KGB reception desk whom I had approached would contact me. But apparently he had forgotten When I went to them, I was just a primary school student. Who knew that I would be so persistent? Also, I didn’t forget that they didn’t recruit volunteers.”
Later, Putin found out that he had wronged the KGB.
The KGB is a very strict intelligence organization that focuses on discovering talents. The KGB made corresponding records for Putin, a primary school student who wanted to join. Of course, it also knew Putin’s situation. When Putin was about to graduate from university, the KGB thought it was necessary to conduct a practical inspection of him. .
Young Putin
Putin certainly doesn’t know about all this.
When he received the notice from the school, he felt that the KGB might be coming to find him, but he was not very sure.
Putin came to the reception room of the law school with an uneasy mood. Just when he was about to ask the middle-aged man what happened, the man spoke in advance:
"I want to talk to you about work assignments, but now It’s hard to tell you what the job is. Let’s talk somewhere else. At noon, go to the restaurant next to your school gate.”
Putin understood immediately, because there were many people in the reception room, and the other party definitely didn’t want to be interrupted by the conversation. Others know that this sense of mystery excites Putin a little.
At noon, Putin came to the restaurant as scheduled. After waiting for half an hour, he still didn’t see the middle-aged man. Putin thought that this man was so untrustworthy and he didn’t seem to be a good person. Since the other party didn’t tell him, Credit, then I will go back to school.
Putin didn’t know that the middle-aged man was looking at him. Just as Putin was about to leave, the middle-aged man suddenly appeared and asked him to sit down and talk. The man got straight to the point and said: How about working at the KGB?
Putin suddenly understood that the other party was from the KGB. These two meetings were the other party's interview and examination of himself. It seemed that he passed. Putin said without any hesitation: I am willing to work in the KGB.
The man looked at him with approval and told him to go back and wait for news.
In the summer of 1975, Putin, who graduated from college, entered the KGB No. 401 Secret School with two other classmates to participate in KGB induction training. If you fail to study, you will be eliminated.
KGB training is very strict, similar to many spy movies.
According to Russian declassified materials, KGB training mainly includes cultural and professional parts. Culture mainly includes the political systems, customs and foreign literature of Western countries, etc. If you are going to send to a country, the literature of that country is the focus of learning.
The other aspect is professional learning, including military topography, photography technology, radio technology, shooting and assassination, intelligence transmission, etc. The training of the Soviet KGB emphasizes practicality. Basically, those who pass the KGB training can become excellent agents.
For example, General Chen Geng studied security work in the Soviet Union. He was good at various skills such as makeup, eavesdropping, and marksmanship. After returning, he became an expert agent. The intelligence system he established was far stronger than the Kuomintang's Central Command and Military Command many.
Young Putin
After Putin passed the induction training, he was assigned to the reconnaissance unit of the KGB Leningrad Work Station. His main task was to track and monitor the work of foreign embassies and report any abnormalities immediately.
At that time, the main battlefields of the intelligence war between the Soviet Union and the United States were in Moscow and Leningrad. Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Union, and Leningrad was the second largest city in the Soviet Union. Many Western countries opened embassies here, and it was an area under key surveillance by the Soviet Union.
Putin has very little information about his work in the reconnaissance unit of the KGB Leningrad Work Station, but he was certainly doing well and was politically reliable, so he entered the Andropov Red Flag School for training in 1984, preparing to be assigned to work abroad.
If you think you are politically unreliable and not professionally proficient, you will have no chance to work abroad.
After Putin received a year of training at the Andropov Red Flag School, he then entered East Germany with the rank of lieutenant colonel and served as the director of the "Soviet-German Friendship House". His main task was to collect information from East Germany, West Germany, and other countries Important information from leaders, national trends, and NATO various plans against the Soviet Union, especially military plans.
This work is very tedious. It is not easy to collect intelligence, but it is especially difficult to sort it out. There is a process of removing falsehoods to preserve the truth, because there is a lot of conflicting information, and the correct information must be sent back to Moscow.
As the important person in charge of the KGB’s intelligence work in East Germany, Putin had to face many problems alone, which greatly exercised Putin’s comprehensive abilities, such as the etiquette in diplomatic situations, the economic development models of various countries, etc., all of which will lay the foundation for Putin in the future. A solid foundation has been laid for stepping into the highest leadership position.
In 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent reunification of the two Germanys, the Soviet Union was crumbling. Putin and his colleagues were ordered to evacuate East Germany and returned to Leningrad.
At this time, the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. The country was in chaos. Even the KGB could not pay much salary. In order to support his family, Putin prepared to work as a taxi driver soliciting customers to support his family.
But the god of fate once again favored this KGB agent. This time the turning point of fate came to Putin's mentor Sobchak .
Sobchak was very eloquent and his speeches were very exciting. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union , Sobchak became the mayor of St. Petersburg with his sharp tongue, and Putin became the deputy mayor.
Sobchak is a scholar-type official who is very good at speaking, but his ability to solve practical problems is not strong, and he has no interest in complicated government affairs. What he is most interested in is going abroad for inspections, which is actually sightseeing. Spend most of the year abroad.
Sobchak became the boss, and Putin actually became the top leader in St. Petersburg . He can exercise power according to his own ideas, as long as he reports to Sobchak later.
A group of elite figures have gradually gathered around Putin, such as Dmitry Medvedev, who was the president of Russia, and Korvalchuk, chairman of the board of directors of Russian Bank.
Putin's outstanding performance is due to the foundation he laid in the KGB. He is calm and not impatient when encountering problems, does not speak harshly and is good at solving urgent, difficult and dangerous problems.
Young Putin
There is a widely circulated joke about these characteristics of Putin.
In 1994, St. Petersburg Mayor Sobchak invited Russian President Yeltsin to go hunting in St. Petersburg. At that time, the Russian economy was on the verge of collapse, and the Chechen issue had not been resolved. Yeltsin was exhausted physically and mentally, so he accepted Sobchak's invitation. Go hunting and relax.
Russia has a vast territory and rich resources, and there are many brown bears in the St. Petersburg area. To ensure safety, Sopchak chose the hunting ground on the outskirts of St. Petersburg as the location for his picnic and hunting. This hunting ground is very large, and Sopchak asked people to prepare some old, weak, sick and disabled brown bears.
Because old, weak, sick and disabled brown bears move slowly, they are not dangerous and are easier to fight. Sopchak originally wanted to make Yeltsin happy and relax, not really hunting.
When Yeltsin arrived at the hunting ground with his assistants and dignitaries, Sopchak had already led local officials to wait. After everyone took their seats, Yeltsin found an empty seat and asked whose seat it belonged to.
Someone told Yeltsin that the seat belonged to First Deputy Mayor Putin. Yeltsin frowned and said nothing.
Why is Putin late? Because his car broke down on the road, by the time Putin arrived, the banquet had already started for more than an hour. After Putin expressed his apology to Yeltsin, he sat down and ate barbecue. Compared with others who were chatting and laughing, Putin was taciturn.
At this moment, a huge brown bear rushed towards Yeltsin. The speed surprised everyone and they were all stunned for a while, because this brown bear was not prepared in advance.
When Yeltsin became nervous, his glasses fell under the table. Seven of his assistants quickly went under the table to look for the glasses.
Just when everyone was in chaos, Putin put down the fork in his hand and stood up. He turned around, picked up the shotgun on the shelf and loaded it with bullets. He aimed it at the huge brown bear and shot it. The gun did not kill the brown bear, but Putin shot him again, killing the bear directly.
Looking at the huge brown bear lying dead, the panicked people recovered. Putin suddenly became the focus of attention. Yeltsin, who had a bad impression of Putin at first, his eyes lit up: This is a man who can calmly deal with danger. He meets the criteria I am looking for as a successor.
After Yeltsin returned to Moscow, he asked Putin to report for duty and appointed him as deputy director of the Presidential Affairs Administration. Putin actually became Yeltsin's entourage, and Yeltsin could inspect Putin at close range.
The more Yeltsin inspected, the more satisfied he became, because Putin was calm and calm when faced with problems, never panicked, and had very tough methods, which Yeltsin admired very much, because he knew that when Russia was facing internal and external troubles, only a strongman could turn the tide.
Regarding this paragraph, it comes from Professor Jin Yinan’s class. The author looked through other materials and did not find the corresponding source.
In fact, the authenticity of this matter is not very important, but we can see Putin’s style of doing things from it.
Why Putin is able to take it easy when others are panicking is mainly due to his sense of crisis, which is exactly the habit Putin developed when he was in the KGB.
The work of the KGB is very boring, far less exciting than in movies and TV series, and full of dangers, especially during the Cold War. It was normal to accidentally end up in prison, and you might even lose your head.
Putin and Yeltsin
Compared with other people who regard secret service as a means, Putin regards secret service as a glorious career. He does not smoke or drink, is not lustful and not greedy for money, and can control his emotions well. .
The comment given by his superiors to Putin is: he lacks fear in everything he does.
In fact, these are superficial phenomena, because fear of unknown things is human instinct, and the way to overcome it is to establish a sense of crisis and think about the response to the crisis in advance. Once you encounter a crisis, you will not be in a hurry, but will follow the instructions. Predetermined method of response.
This is a bit like memorizing chess records.
If you want to become a chess master, you must memorize a lot of chess records. When someone else makes a move, we will not lose if we follow the predetermined chess records. The more chess records we memorize, the higher our chess skills will be.
This is especially true for a leader, because the higher the position, the more difficulties you face and the greater the difficulty. This requires leaders to have a calm mind, predict dangers in advance, and make targeted preparations. , Only in this way can we make plans and take precautions.
Being prepared for a rainy day is the core competitiveness of a leader.
Putin’s 16-year career as an agent laid a solid foundation for him to become the president of Russia in the future.
The results of the college entrance examination came out this year. Several friends and relatives asked me whether it was good to enter the military academy. In fact, this question is quite difficult to answer. The author has studied in more than 10 military academies. Let me talk about my feelings.
In fact, military academies cultivate human will, physical fitness, and response to crises, which is completely different from local universities. If you want to be like Putin, military school is a good choice.
If you want to live a comfortable life and be more free and relaxed, it is better to go to a local university.
Putin
The master introduces the door, and the practice is up to each person. The final result depends on yourself, because personal efforts always come first.
